luxury listed houses for sale Sarthe, France

A 15th and 16th-century manor house, listed as a Historical Monument, its outbuildings and 12-hectare grounds in the Mayenne department. From the village, a small road leads to a private driveway up to the entrance porch, which opens onto a main courtyard. The driveway also extends behind the manor and provides access to two outbuildings located to the west. A third outbuilding encloses the courtyard to the east, near the entrance. Pastures spread out on either side of the driveway. One of them is continued to the north with the first part of an oak grove, which then unfolds towards the west. The manor’s courtyard is extended by a garden, which overlooks a small river. Two other pastures located on the other side are accessible via a bridge. Constructed partially over a basement level, the manor contains four floors, including two built into the roof space. Made out of stone and rubble and coated in plaster, its edifice is crowned with gabled slate roofs and stone rims, punctuated by dormer windows topped with sculpted ornaments. Stone mullioned windows cadence the façade and a double flight staircase leads to the front door. In the back, the body of the main building is flanked by a square tower with a tented roof, a staircase tower and a round tower with a pointed roof. To the east, a small two-storey, hipped slate roof building is attached to the square tower. A cellar, accessible from the outside, is located under a portion of the manor. Its walls are made out of small sandstone masonry, which could date to the 11th and 12th centuries. The manor’s façades and roof, as well as its eastern two-storey wing, are listed as historical monuments.

A restored 16th-century mansion with over seven hectares of grounds, nestled in France’s River Loir valley and listed as a historical monument. A quiet country lane leads through meadows and farmland on a plateau. From this lane, a driveway lined with North American oaks leads up to the seigneurial mansion. A car park lies next to an entrance to a vast courtyard. You cross a bridge over a water-filled moat on the south side. The mansion stands straight ahead. All the buildings are arranged around the courtyard. A tree-dotted garden lies on the east side, behind a high stone wall yet within the moat’s enclosure. In the north-west corner of the moat-enclosed complex, another bridge stretches across the moat. From this spot, you can gaze out at meadows where majestic trees tower. A small wood also lies in the property’s north-west corner, beside its boundaries. Meadows evenly spread around the moat-formed island cover an area of around six hectares. The estate dates back to the 14th century, when the land was part of the nearby fiefdom of La Mothe d’Olbeau. Over the centuries, several families followed one after another on this estate that forms a self-sufficient home. The dwelling was probably built in the 15th century, then extended and redesigned between the late 16th century and the early 17th century to create, above all, its staircase tower and central pavilion. All the fireplaces inside date back to this period and were doubtless crafted by a specialist stone cutter. In the 18th century, the rear eastern pavilion with large windows, a section slightly lower in height, was added to the edifice and the south-east-facing facade was transformed to harmonise the whole mansion’s appearance. In the 16th century, a range of fortifications were made, including the surrounding wall, the moat with its bridges, a fortified tower, and more than twenty arrow slits. At the start of the 20th century, the estate covered around 150 hectares that included smallholdings and a mill.

Close to La Chartre-sur-le-Loir, in a dominant position, a classified neo-Gothic castle with nearly 5 hectares of park, meadows, and woods. At the edge of the Bercé state forest and at the exit of a picturesque village with shops, the estate is set back and not overlooked, enclosed by old walls with gates or hedges. The property is organized around its castle, set on the slope of a hill, at the center of a park that mixes meadows, AOC lands, and woods. Built between 1908 and 1913 and classified MH since 1984, the residence is emblematic of the flamboyant neo-Gothic style, which was once very popular among the aristocracy and the upper bourgeoisie. With an area of approximately 275 m², it has four levels including a ground floor and an attic. The slate roofs are punctuated by numerous dormer windows. The cornices, corner chains, dormer windows, and window frames are made of tuffeau. To the east and west, stone staircases with railings lead to an entrance hall and a kitchen. The western facade is bordered by a terrace overlooking the garden. On the facades of the building, flint from the Loir valley interacts with sculpted tuffeau to recreate the aesthetic of a chivalric manor. The architecture evokes the medieval repertoire, with systematic use of the pointed arch, lancets, and stained glass, focusing on a search for light and verticality of lines. A pepperpot turret, suspended on molded corbels, flanks the residence, topped with a slate extinguishing cap. Wide stone mullioned windows punctuate the ground floor, while on the first floor, paired windows are set under their delicately sculpted pointed arches. A richly pierced stone balustrade with quatrefoils overlooks the south gable.This description has been automatically translated from French.

A chateau from the 16th and 17th centuries listed as a Historical Monument, its outbuildings and equestrian facilities over 18 hectares of grounds between the Sarthe, Mayenne and Maine-et-Loire departments, near Sablé. Two drives lead to a carriage entrance topped with a pediment that opens onto a grand courtyard. On one side, is the chateau and, on the other, an immense outbuilding, both façades of which are punctuated by pruned yew trees, while a covered well is located in the centre. The current chateau corresponds to the former abbatial dwelling: this is where the Abbot resided, in the western wing of the abbey that once stood here. During the 18th century, the court was at Versailles and the buildings were spruced up and converted so they could be rented out, therefore providing the abbey with some revenue. With three storeys, including an attic level, the chateau is made out of plaster-coated stone and rubble stone. On the side facing the grounds, its slate hipped roof is cadenced by four bull’s-eye windows, while, on the side facing the courtyard, there are three attic dormer windows grouped together under a single pediment in addition to four other dormer windows. Both the chateau’s east and west exteriors are crowned with a pediment on their roofs, which is then repeated above the central entrance on each side. With window and door surrounds decorated with smooth rusticated stonework, the three doors on the chateau’s façade are topped with either curvilinear or triangular pediments, while its quoins, cornice and dormer windows are made out of ashlar stone. Inside, the chateau has conserved its original décor: cartouches, medallions, chimneybreasts, decorative window and door surrounds, wood panelling, marble and stone, while the size of the magnificent rooms as well as their floor-to-ceiling height add to the chateau’s overall grandeur. In addition to the topiary garden on the chateau’s eastern side, there is also a dovecote, orchard, vegetable garden, ornamental trees and a stream, which is straddled by an old bridge flanked by the columns of an ancient carriage entrance. All around, the grounds are made up of pastures, tall trees and a small wood, while equestrian facilities have been created to the west of the outbuilding, on the side facing the grounds. These include wooden paddocks, a riding ring and an area for the horses to rest and relax. The carriage entrance, the chateau’s exteriors as well as its entrance hall, vast living room, dining room and seven bedrooms are listed as national historical monuments as are the well and bridge, while the outbuilding’s exteriors and the dovecote are registered as regional historical monuments.